So George W. Bush has decided it is all over bar the shouting. Most likely he is right. The Gore team will no doubt continue the battle but it is hard to see how the courts can provide the vice-president with the keys to the Oval office.

Conventional wisdom has it that the financial markets are likely to prefer a tax-cutting, business-loving, Bush presidency. Putting more money in consumers' pockets, runs the argument, should boost the stock market. That, in turn, will suck in international investors who will have to buy dollars in order to acquire US assets. Nor are the economic advisers who cluster around Mr Bush likely to favour foreign exchange market intervention to weaken the greenback, whatever the wishes of, say, the European Central Bank.

There are those who argue that Mr Bush will be hamstrung by Washington gridlock at its most acute, but given the amount of pork in the barrel the president-presumptive should be able get quite a bit of his own way.

Yesterday's reception was hardly rapturous. The Dow managed a decent enough rally, though part of that must be down to the hope that an end to America's electoral marathon might, finally, be in sight. For the dollar, however, it was a day in the doldrums even though the euro remains the market's favourite whipping boy and Tokyo's political impasse makes the Washington version look a mere bagatelle.

In the longer term, the key to how markets will fare under Bush will lie in the development of relations between the White House and the Federal Reserve. For much of the two Clinton administrations they have generally been fairly good.

While the performance of the economy has no doubt made it easier for the White House to maintain a relaxed view of Fed policy - at least in public - there does seem to have been an awareness that being at loggerheads with Fed chairman Alan Greenspan is at best unprofitable and at worst counterproductive.

Whether Mr Bush has absorbed the lesson is open to question. One wonders what he would make of it if Mr Greenspan decided that tax cuts were providing too much of a boost to the economy and that a touch or several on the interest rate tiller would be appropriate. Markets would find such a tug of war unsettling.

True enough, it will be for the next president to decide if Mr Greenspan should be offered yet another term. But it is a double-edged sword.

Even if the Messrs Bush and Greenspan become economic soulmates (an unlikely scenario) Mr Greenspan may decide that, come the summer of 2004, he has done enough for the US economy.

Mr Bush might be able to ride out the loss of the Fed chairman to retirement even in an election year. Any suspicion that he had been pushed out and the Republicans would get a graphic reminder of just how many votes there are in the US bond market.

George Bush senior reportedly blamed Mr Greenspan for his defeat in the 1992 presidential race. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that George junior may have a similar beef with the Fed chairman come the next election.

Cazenove shock

It would be fanciful to see yesterday's announcement from Cazenove as a long-delayed echo from the City's big bang. It is a shock, nonetheless.

Back in 1986, Cazenove - the bluest of City blue-bloods - opted out of the corporate marriage market which left plenty of firms and their buyers repenting at leisure. Instead it chose to keep its independence; to use its reputation and connections to carve out its own distinctive place (nothing so vulgar as a niche at Cazenove) in the post big bang City.

Much of that, however, is to change. Though independence remains non-negotiable, one or more outside investors will be invited to buy shares in the firm. Such a move on its own would be revolutionary enough. In the event, it is but a prelude to a stock market flotation, expected in 2002.

So what has caused the change of strategy? Cazenove acknowledges that being an unlimited partnership has its disadvantages. The new structure will have the advantage of being more easily understood by international clients; it will provide more resources. Crucially, according to Cazenove, it will allow employees to be rewarded with shares.

None of this is exactly rocket science. Whole legions of companies, for example, have long seen shares and share options as a handy way of rewarding - and keeping - staff. Cazenove's conversion, however, shows just how competitive the market has now become.

The interesting question now is how well Cazenove, where discretion is not so much a virtue as a way of life, will cope with the culture shock of the switch into the public domain and the scrutiny which is the inevitable accompaniment. Still, knowing how much you are worth will be considerable consolation.